My brain and my gut argue about Numbsters

Numbsters is a solitaire micro game that’s built around the old joke that Seven ate Nine.

The game consists of eighteen cards that are numbered one through eighteen. It’s sort of an In Hand game since all of the active cards are held splayed in your hand. (You still need a draw deck and a discard pile but there are ways of dealing with that and keeping everything in your hands)

The eight card is the mouth card. The basic mechanic of the game is that, if the eight is in between two cards that are in sequence, the larger card can be discarded. One could eat two, thirteen could eat fourteen, etc.

Ah, but there’s a clever bit. Every card other than the eight has a special power that gives you other ways for cards to eat each other. And whatever card is on top of the active cards, that’s the special power you get to use.

Each turn, you draw a card from the draw pile. You can then move one card or swap two cards. Then, you have to eat a card, discarding it.

You win if you eat sixteen cards and the eight is not on top of the active cards. You lose if the eight ever on top or you can’t eat a card.

I’m of two minds of Numbsters.

On the one hand, it hasn’t zinged for me. I keep meaning to play it more and just haven’t gotten around to it. Part of me feels like I could really like it if I give it enough of a chance but I haven’t worked up the energy to do that.

On the sugar-coated side, I think that it’s mechanically really well designed and I think it’s a brilliant use of theme. From the game-as-art form standpoint, I think Numbsters does a great job.

So, my brain thinks Numbsters should be good but my gut isn’t convinced.

… What did I just read?

After reading Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill, I wondered if Japense light novels had reached the point where deconstruction no longer has a functional meaning. What’s more, I really doubt that it’s the most absurd or extreme example out there.  

Campfire (I refuse to type out the whole name again) started out as a web novel. Since then, it has become a light novel series, a manga and an anime. I’ve just stuck to the light novels because they’re easier to read on my phone.

After going pulled into a fantasy world, salaryman Mukohda quickly figures out that he’s been summon by an evil empire and takes off to do his own thing. He’s able to easily figure things out because he’s read lots of web novels!

More than that, he has a unique magical talent: Online Supermarket. It’s a magical combination of Amazon and Grubhub (that still costs him money) With it, Mukohda has access to modern Earth food and other products. With the power of refined sugar and prepackaged sauces, he is able to gain unbeatable legendary monsters as allies and  the favor of the gods.

Campifire is such unbelievable wish fulfillment that it’s fascinating. There’s no shame about it or trying to hide it at all. Thanks to his shopping skills, Mukohda has no functional worries beyond cooking meals for his monster buddies.

To be fair, that does sound pretty fun lol

I will note that, while there’s tons of food description, I really wouldn’t call the descriptions foodie or gourmet. Mukohda uses lots of prepackaged and premade ingredients. Which actually just builds on the whole wish fulfillment angle. I mean, that’s how I cook.

 

I have to say that I found the actual writing to be stilted with a lot of repetitive phrases. I don’t know if I should blame Ren Eguchi or the translator. There were pieces of dialogue that felt like they would have made more sense as a comic panel full of speech balloons.

But the absurdity of the concept and the way the work went whole hog into wish fulfillment just kept my interest.

Campfire is a profoundly self aware work. It couldn’t exist in a vacuum. Instead of a parody, it’s a celebration of escapism.

Learning about Learning

While teaching myself Numbsters, I noted a few comments on the easy and repetitive nature of the game. Which made me feel pretty silly since I haven’t been finding that to be the case.

The I realized those players probably actual read through all the special powers and planned out their strategies. As opposed to me, who made the cards, shuffled them and started playing.

I think there’s a number of reasons why I prefer to learn games without examination and analysis first. Beyond just laziness and impatience, which are also there, of course.

A lot of it has to do with how I first learned games when I really started playing board games. I would be learning other people’s copies or demos at conventions. Under those circumstances, you can’t read through every last card or other component.

There’s also something to be said about tactile learning, learning by actually doing. I know for me, that tends to sink in better. Plus, it gives you the fun of discovery.

I know that approaching games this way means that it takes me longer to get good at puzzley games, which is what a lot of solitaire games break down to. On the other hand, I get in more plays of those games, figuring them out this way.

Preschoolers deserve good games too

While recovering from an illness, I decided to learn My First Castle Panic on Board Game Arena. Because, quite frankly, that’s what I was up for.

As I played it, I kept asking myself ‘Is this it? Am I missing something?’ So I played it again. ‘No. I guess that is it’

I’ve played the original Castle Panic but I have virtually no memories of it. Which doesn’t mean it’s bad (I’d probably remember it more if it was terrible) but it does mean it wasn’t my bag. Castle Panic is a tower defense game and so is its baby sibling.

And I’m not sure how you would simplify a tower defense more than My First Castle Panic. There is only one track for the monsters to move on. The only defense the castle has is a wall. And while a special card rebuild the wall, there is no other defensive buffs and no offensive buffs.

The basic gameplay is playing a card that matches the shape and color in a space to knock off the monster on it. So it really comes down to drawing the right cards or the castle falling.

And you might say, dude, it’s a kid’s game. It’s clearly designed for kids who aren’t old enough to read. Don’t you think you’re being kind of harsh here?

A bit but earlier this year, I tried out Baby Dinosaur Rescue (also on BGA) that is also a cooperative game aimed at the pre-literate crowd and I felt it did a much better job. One, while the basic strategy is very obvious, it’s there and kids can implement it. Two, the game isn’t weighted against the players, just bad decisions.

Basically, if you play well with Baby Dinosaur Rescue, you will probably win. And I don’t mind a cooperative being easy if it’s for four-year-olds. If you draw the right cards, you’ll win My First Castle Panic. It seems weighted against the players and player decisions doesn’t seem to affect that. That doesn’t encourage critical thinking and that doesn’t reward its target demographic.

Keep in mind, I think Don’t Spill the Beans is a god game for little ones. Because it helps develop hand-eye coordination and, yes, it does reward good play.

It’s easy to criticize a game for four-year-olds for not being any good for grown ups and it’s intrinsically not fair. But I honestly feel My First Castle Oanic falls short for toddlers as either a game or an activity.

(As a side note, I’ve learned that some designers put games on BGA for play testing and critique, which is why games for toddlers can be found there. That had been confusing me)

 

I fail to do justice to El Goonish Shive

I’ve occasionally written about web comics but I recently realized I’ve never written about my favorite web comic, El Goonish Shive by Dan Shive. (The name is a nonsensical reference to the creater’s name and has nothing to do with the strip, by the way)

The series has been around for over twenty years and has kind of followed the evolution of web comic trends. It started off as a fourth-wall breaking snarky strip with loads of pop culture references. Since then, It has evolved into an urban fantasy with a strong focus on emotional problems and gender issues. And much, much better artwork.

El Goonish Shive is about a group of quirky teenagers, all who have varying degrees of experience with the supernatural, with a particularly strong focus on transformation. The tone ranges from silly light to dark heavy and storylines range from slice of life to high fantasy adventure. The tone can range from pure comedy to tragedy, sometimes in the same arc.

While the cast started out with three characters, the number of main characters is now something like ten with gobs of supporting characters, which is more than I want to go into. However, a testament to the quality of character development is Ted. Ted started as a snarky pervert teen mad scientist and has become a sensitive, insightful, gender fluid teen mad scientist.

And somehow, amidst this sea of different tones, Dan Shive keeps his web comic feel consistent.  Honestly, by the second year, his writing started to really click and has pretty much kept improving from there. El Goonish Shive has been relentlessly thoughtful and sweet.

While I can’t recommend starting from the beginning (the birthday party arc is where I feel the writing truly gels), I think El Goonish Shive is worth anyone’s time reading.

Ticket to Ride: New York does its iob

I have read (but I don’t actually know if it’s true) that Ticket to Ride: New York was designed as a convention demo and only went retail due to demand. Even if that’s not true, it is a fun story.

I actually picked up a very lightly used copy a couple years back (so lightly that the cards were were still wrapped) but only recently got it on the table.

I’m assuming that anyone reading this knows how to play Ticket to Ride. If you don’t, close your browser window and go play Ticket to Ride. That will be a better use of your time than reading my blog.

The idea behind the city line of Ticket to Ride is a shorter, smaller version of the game, one that takes ten to fifteen minutes to play.  The boards are smaller (I want to say a third the functional size of the big boards) and you have fifteen cars instead of forty-five. Huh, that number supports my one-third estimate.

The only addition to the basic Ticket to Ride rules that everyone should know and love in New York is tourist attractions. Certain locations are marked with a penny and you get a bonus point for connecting to them.

I went in with two negative expectations. I was expecting that the games would be so short that sifting through tickets wouldn’t be a viable strategy. And I was expecting that the points from tourist attractions would be too small to make a difference.

What I hadn’t considered was that the routes and the tickets would both be smaller. So no one burns through their cars so fast that drawing more tickets is the equivalent of losing a turn. In fact, sticking with only your starting tickets looks like a losing strategy. 

And that’s because my fear about the tourist attractions does seem to pan out. The bonus points you get from them aren’t as much as pursuing tickets or even longer routes.

Looking at the other city games, New York doesn’t seem as polished. The map has more bottle necks and the bonus feature is meh. After playing it, I ordered the London map because the district bonus scoring (effectively having bonus tickets printed on the board) seems more of an actual game changer.

Still, at the end of the day, Ticket to Ride: New York succeeds at its most important goal. It feels like playing Ticket to Ride.

I will admit that ten years ago, a fifteen-minute Ticket to Ride would have just seemed cute. As a parent, it’s now a much higher deal. Being able to get in a game on a school night and feel like I’ve actually played a game is huge for us.

Three games that make me want to play 30 Rails

I decided that I wanted to clear out some light Roll and Writes that had been on my plate in a session with a clip board and a dice roller. Honestly, since they are very light and, to be brutally honest, there’s only one I see myself playing again, I’m just covering them all in one post.

All three games are draw stuff on a grid, possibly the most common format for R&W games.

Easter Egg Roll and Write is a game from Gleason Games and I think (?) I found it on itchi.io. It is identical to their Halloween Roll and Fright. Roll three dice. Two of them will be corrdinates on a six-by-six grid and the third will be the symbol you draw.

And, since it was the same as the Halloween game, I wasn’t surprised that the Easter game was terrible. Having to use two dice to determine coordinates and having no dice manipulation turns games into exercises of frustrations. 

On top of the that, you are drawing flowers, trees and ponds. Spring? Okay. Nature? Sure. Easter as a theme? Really?

Turn on the Lamp is an entry in the 14th Roll and Write Contest. It’s a connection game where the twist was the grid was a ten-by-ten grid and you only had four path shapes. So you roll a ten-sided die and a four-sided die each turn.

Easter Egg Roll and Write did make Turn on the Lamp look good, playing them back to back. But it was ultimately not a satisfying game. The grid is simply so big that you won’t end up using most of it to connect the light bulbs to power sources. And a ten-sided die creates enough variance to annoy me.

The last game I tried was Tabletop Arcade: Roll and Snake, yet another Roll and Write adaptation of the old video game Snake. You roll three dice, choose two, and draw a line that many spaces.

Even thought the grid gets more cluttered in the later rounds, I didn’t find it too difficult. At the start of each round, I’d plot out a route and it was only tricky making sure I didn’t overshoot the last  symbol in a round.

I kept checking and I’m pretty sure I was getting the rules right.

On the one hand, if was playing Roll and Snake correctly, it is honestly too easy. On the other hand, it didn’t annoy me and frustrate me like the other two games.

While it was fun to try out some new games, none of them passed the 30 Rails test: why would I play this rather than 30 Rails? 30 Rails keeps holding its place as a gold standard PnP R&W and a game I’ll recommend to anyone.